Peripheral Vision
by Designation
Summary: We're so often blind to the things that are standing right next to us to what is barely hinted at on the edge of sight. Sara and Nick have unanswered questions. AU PostEp, Play With Fire. Sequel to Unclean, Undisturbed, but can stand alone.


**Peripheral Vision**

**by**

**Kel**

**Disclaimer:** I claim no ownership to CSI or any of it's characters, and gain no monetary profit from this fiction – nope, only pride, and the joy that comes from lovely reviews.

**Author's Note:** This is a sequel of sorts to a previous CSI fic of mine, _Unclean, Undisturbed._ Though I'd say this could just as well stand on it's own.

This piecetakes place following the whole busting in on thesuspectthing in _Play With Fire_, and unfortunately for all you Sara/Grissom UST fans out there, I had to cut out their scene at the end of the episode. Also, I postponed the little Sara and Nick scene (_"I hear you think you're indestructible now . . ."_).

Thanks to Kristen999 for the helpful comments.

* * *

He's waiting for me when I make my way down the battered hall and into the Break Room. He's leaning against the wall – and I know it's me he's been waiting for, because when I step into the room, he puts down his almost untouched coffee, folds his arms, and gives me this penetrating _look._

I don't bother trying to keep the venom from my voice as I respond to his angry eyes. "Something bothering you, Nick?" I must be able to read his mind, because I know – _know_ – that he's thinking what they all must be. Reckless, foolish woman. Can't handle a weapon with any sense, can't handle the pressure.

"I hear you think you're indestructible now." If it were only his voice, one would think he were talking about the weather. _Looks like rain out in the mountains today._ But it's not just his voice; it's his posture, his tired eyes.

"Yeah," I respond, almost lightly, falling just short. "Guess I'm just a regular Rocky the Flying Squirrel, huh Nick?"

His return falls out of the sunshine entirely. "Have you ever had a gun drawn on you, Sarah?" Miles off target.

Maybe light isn't what he's aiming for, maybe it's just me. I can feel myself stiffen. What right does he have to use me for target practice?

"No, Nick," I growl back at him. It may have taken me all day, but I'm very clear on what I'm feeling now. Butting heads is what I'm good at, right? "But what exactly does _your_ trauma have to do with me? I'm not seeing the connection here."

I brush past him and grab up the coffee pot, and I'm a little disgusted to find myself wondering: Does the pot usually so closely resemble a lifeline? Or am I just making it look like it does? I slam a cup down from the cupboard and pour myself a few mouthfuls of stale sludge. It's no Blue Hawaiian, won't be for awhile now, but I still enjoy the burn as it slides down my throat.

"What the hell makes you think there's some _thing_ out there protecting you?" What he doesn't say trails in the air behind his words. _Because it sure as hell never protected me, did it? That's the connection._ He turns on me then, and I feel a spike of irrational fear – it has to be irrational, Nick would never – "How can you be so stupid?" He moves as if to grab my arm, but thinks better of it and backs off. Before I get the chance to.

It's my turn then, to whirl on him, anger crashing over me once more; a reaction to his raw nerves grating against my own. "How can you ask me that? After all the things we've seen on this job, how can you possibly think I'm some naive child?"

I'm expecting him to pass 'Go' now. To fall into the yelling game I've heard so many times in my life, but never from him. I'm expecting someone to come to see what the commotion's about. I'm expecting to soon be hiding my face in my coffee in embarrassment, as Nick screams at me in a way that just isn't Nick. And I don't know why.

I know why he'd be mad, and scared – for me, just as we've all been for him – but I can't see what would possess CSI Nicky Stokes to act this way.

But no matter who I think I'm looking at, he's still the same ever-tactful, ever-dependable Nicky I know, and he keeps his response down to a strained whisper. My stomach twists in an unexpected knot at that – this drained, angry, cold, unsmiling man before me is still Nick; always Nick.

"Why would you put yourself at risk like that then, Sara? Explain to me why." He's deflated now, and seeing the fatigue, worry, and confusion in his eyes makes me realize how much we wage a war of questions. And how many of them hang unanswered in the smoke-flavoured air of this lab.

Such as how little I know about the foreign posture of the man before me – slumped shoulders, arms folded almost as if to hold himself up, hands fisted. Should I chalk it up to worry? Over me? Over Greg maybe? Or is it something more?

"Why does it matter so much, Nick?" I'm not so tense anymore, done being angry, but now I'm getting worried myself. For some reason, this is all harder than it needs to be. "I mean, I just helped clear the scene – it's done all the time. Why does it really matter who's holding the gun?"

I think this must be the first time in a long time that Nick's real emotions are written on his face. After all, how does a person really just crash like this? It can only be an implosion, of something he's almost always held together.

I can see it in his eyes, but he can't meet mine -- he doesn't know that I'm not talking about my own actions anymore. To him I'm still scrambling, still justifying myself.

I know, because he's done with our hostile question and answer dance of flames. Lashing out, pulling away, burning, burning. "You're right, Sara," he says, stiffly unclenching his fists. He briefly massages his left palm with his right thumb, relaxing his strained muscles as he moves calmly to the door. "I'm in the wrong here."

My eyes follow him out. He looks like he's moving in slow motion, and I suddenly feel that I've failed with him – I've failed him so miserably. We all have, for so long – how could none of us have ever known this side of him? How could we have never even glimpsed it? Why couldn't we ever do something?

Ours is a job in which one is far too often left in the dark -- lost, wandering, and wondering.

I see it happening out of the corner of my eye. But I still jump when the world snaps back into real time, and the Break Room door slams in Nick's wake.

And it's a moment of blindness that awakens me to how little is seen in peripheral vision.

**End.**


End file.
